Fakestagram – How bots and fake accounts simulate a vivid world in social media

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[–]magnora7 3 insightful - 2 fun3 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 2 fun -  (4 children)

Changing public perception is becoming more coordinated on the internet, there's no question about that. And there's more shill groups too. And the bots are getting better so a bad actor can easily amplify their presence and appear to be 100 people. And there's more young people online than ever, some of whom are easily influenced by these narratives and worldviews that are pushed.

We live in a time of psychological warfare, and the tools and abilities to propagate war on the mind of the public are becoming more and more subtle and powerful. And accessible, so any corporation can join in to help form the new cultural zeitgeist.

The whole thing is a pied piper situation in a way that it absolutely wasn't 20 or even 10 years ago, mostly because of the rise in successful use of paid shill groups, and AI chatbots that are now almost as smart as dumb humans. All combined it is creating a mess of propaganda, and it's honestly ruining the internet in my opinion. It is the poisoning humanity's information stream, and many are too naive to see it yet.

It's a real problem. Perhaps the problem of the decade, honestly. This is impacting almost everyone's mental state and happiness.

[–]HiddenFox 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (3 children)

Well said. I agree wholeheartedly that this is the biggest problem we are facing this decade.

Beyond in-person education on how to resist manipulation tactics there is little that can be done as it seems to be a war of "one upminship" between spammers and anti spammers.

Yelling online that something or someone is fake just seems to add fuel to the fire and I really feel that social media manipulation has a high degree of moving people to phyically act in the real world., thus creating a real danger when that compulsion to act is drivin by someones agenda (whether that be an individual, social movement, private company or government.)

Truly this is a great and serious problem of our age.

[–]magnora7 3 insightful - 2 fun3 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 2 fun -  (2 children)

I agree it is a great and serious problem. A lot of people think "oh it's just some trolls saying bad words, no big deal." but they don't realize the incredible volume and coordination that happens. It's one thing when the trolls are 1% of the community. It's entirely another when the trolls or bots become 60%+ of the community, sometimes without the genuine users realizing it. It's very damaging to our most vital information stream, and damaging to human psychology at large.

[–]adultmanhwa 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

it is a great and serious problem

to whom? not to average people of course, and as long as not average ppl that's okay to me.

[–]magnora7 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

It is to average people, because average people use the internet. It affects everyone, as I said.